31 August 2023 - A nighttime fire has ripped through

31 August 2023 - A nighttime fire has ripped through a run-down five-storey building in Johannesburg that was occupied by squatters and homeless people, killing at least 74 people, including 12 children. Usindiso Ministries was once a homely space offering shelter, education and social services to abused women and their children. A nighttime fire has ripped through a run-down five-storey building in Johannesburg that was occupied by squatters and homeless people, killing at least 74 people, including 12 children. Some of the people living in a maze of shacks and other makeshift structures inside the building threw themselves out of windows on Thursday to escape the fire. Abandoned and broken-down buildings in the area are common and often taken over by people desperately seeking some form of accommodation. City authorities refer to them as -aehijacked buildings-n. A sign on the entrance to the gutted block shows it was a heritage building of South Africa's apartheid past, where Black South Africans came to collect their dompas -" documents that would enable them to work in white-owned areas of the city

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2023 Abused Accommodation Africans Apartheid Authorities Broken-down Collect Desperately Enable Five-storey Gutted Holdings Homely Least Makeshift Maze Ministries Nighttime Often Refer Ripped Run-down Seeking Shacks Squatters Structures Themselves Threw Thursday

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